Memory, p.21
Memory, page 21
“So, tell me what’s going on?” And then he sat back and listened contentedly.
And if there were minor blips — a name of an anchor he couldn’t remember, an on-going story he’d forgotten about — well he just did his usual ‘act as if’ mantra and rolled with it.
But an hour later, he was tired and ready for a nap. Of course, sleep had become a treacherous thing. Suck it up and deal, he told himself. He had a new goal. Get enough control so he could get out of here.
And as long as the Ryan who left this place remembered Teresa Valdez-Matthews? He’d live with that.
McShane watched Ryan sleep from the doorway with a frown on his face. Teresa sat beside him, holding his hand — letting him grip her hand really — and reading on her phone.
“Something bothering you?” Cage asked quietly.
McShane smiled. He liked the young man standing beside him — thought quite highly of him. He also thought OPB had been a mistake. He was getting the impression Cage thought so, too. Well, he hadn’t asked him for advice, and one young graduate in crisis was enough. More than enough. He didn’t do mentoring. Who forgot to send out that memo this time?
“He’s faking it,” McShane said, quietly, after a quick look around to make sure that Erica Clarke wasn’t listening.
“He is,” Cage agreed, unsurprised. “‘Act as if’ has been his mantra his whole life. He’s hardly going to jettison it now for full disclosure.”
McShane snorted, because if that didn’t sum it up, nothing did.
“Why?” McShane asked.
Cage looked at him questioningly.
“What did he pick up on that made him think he needed to ‘act as if’?” McShane elaborated.
Cage chewed his cheek. “Good question,” he admitted. He looked around too. “How long do you think Dr. Clarke can keep her supervisory committee at bay before they want him in a long-term facility for recovery instead of here?”
That brought McShane to a halt. “We have a contract,” he began then stopped. Ryan was faculty now, not a student. And this was an adolescent psychiatric unit — Erica Clarke already had pressure put on her over this patient. “Shit.”
“We’re going to have to break him out of here before she has him committed for a 30-day involuntary hold,” Cage said. “Mom gave me a heads up. Not quite sure what put a bee in her bonnet, but her sources are usually gold.”
McShane could guess, and he’d probably get the same heads up when he got home. The members of the Portland Professional Women’s Association had an information network that rivaled any Internet system he’d encountered. You go, girl, he thought in admiration. Dr. Clarke played by the rules even when she didn’t like them. But she didn’t expect others to do the same. In fact, she appeared to be counting on it.
“Can we?” McShane said. “I mean, yes, we could just say ‘see ya’ and walk him out. But can he be on his own? Will Teresa and Rafael be safe?”
“Do you really think he’d do anything to hurt either of those two?” Cage asked, starting to get angry.
“Not the Ryan we know, no,” McShane agreed. “But what about the other Ryans? The one who cheated on her nightly until she left him? He was in control for a bit this morning, you know. I’d forgotten what a scary fucker he could be. What about a Ryan who doesn’t know her at all? Or a child Ryan who....” He trailed off seeing from Cage’s appalled expression that he had made his point.
“Shit,” Cage said troubled.
“We need to talk about it — probably with Ryan — but without professional ears,” McShane said. “I’m trying to figure out how to frame a trial run for pizza.”
“Well that’s at least believable,” Cage said. “We should include my mom. And are you sure we couldn’t include Sam Bonner? He might have valuable insights. But I agree, Ryan has to be included. We can’t sneak behind his back. Behind Dr. Clarke’s? Sure. But Ryan will know we’re up to something and feel betrayed. Besides....” Cage hesitated.
“Besides he’s a devious bastard and is probably already thinking about it,” McShane finished. Cage laughed.
Chapter 23
5:30 P.M., WEDNESDAY, June 16, 2021, Goose Hollow apartment — Cage waited until the morning after the Zoom meeting to approach Dr. Clarke to talk about a trial run, a dinner to celebrate Emily’s birthday. (It wasn’t her birthday, but as long as there was chocolate, she was good with it, she said. And it had to be someone who had never visited Dr. Clarke’s clinic, which ruled him out — he’d seen her when he was 14, and she would have his birthday on file. Maybe it wouldn’t matter. But why risk it?)
His mother would be there, and it was just going to be pizza at his place, he told her. A place Ryan had lived and was familiar with. They’d included the McShanes, just in case.
“President McShane can control him,” Cage said. “You’ve seen it. And if all else fails? I’ll knock him out and drag him back.”
“Cage! Another blow...,” she began before she realized he was teasing and laughed. “I can’t stop you,” she said. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea. But he does seem to be doing pretty well.”
“He does,” Cage agreed. He wasn’t sure it was true, but he did seem to be doing well.
So, after a brief appearance at the EWN Zoom meeting, day 2, Cage and Teresa escorted him out to Cage’s Camry, and they headed down the hill to Goose Hollow.
“Is this a permanent jail break or a temporary one?” Ryan asked with interest.
Cage snorted. “And that’s why we didn’t bother to connive behind your back. Temporary. We’re celebrating Emily’s non-existent birthday for some candid talk.”
“Sam Bonner going to be there?” Ryan asked, looking out the window. He was in the back, along with Teresa, so that he could hold her hand. He concentrated on not squeezing it too tightly.
“Now how did you...,” Cage started, then laughed. “Yeah, he’s coming.”
“He’d be on my list if I was organizing this meeting,” Ryan said equitably. “I assume President McShane is too?”
“And his wife.”
Ryan went very still. “Beloved?” he said quietly. “That is not a good idea.”
She looked at him with wide eyes. He didn’t say anything else.
“Mom is coming, and she’s bringing Rafael who misses his daddy,” Cage went on as if he hadn’t heard him. Maybe he hadn’t, Ryan thought. But Teresa had, and it had hurt her. But not as much as it would hurt if Abigail Ruby McShane inspired a 20-year-old Ryan to try and take control again. Strong little bastard, he thought.
She swallowed hard before she pulled out her phone and sent a text to someone. Ryan closed his eyes at the pain he was causing the people he loved the most.
Abigail looked at her phone and frowned. “Andrew? Do you know why Teresa would say that Ryan doesn’t think it would be good for me to be there tonight?” Her voice was controlled, but he heard the hurt.
He frowned. Then it hit him. “Shit,” he said. He sighed. “And he’s right, damn him.”
“Andrew?”
“The fragment — that’s what he calls them — that is the strongest and has already taken control more than once? That’s 20-year-old Ryan. The time I saw it was brief, but it was damn scary to watch him shift. Erica thinks it’s because Teresa was in his world then as well as now. She seems to be his anchor?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “Probably the same Ryan who went dancing?”
“That was a smaller version of the fragment, but yes,” her husband agreed. “Ryan’s afraid if you’re there, it will give that fragment more power, more incentive, and he might not be able to stop him. Because that fragment had the best of both worlds — Teresa and you. It hurt Teresa tremendously, of course, and Ryan damn near died before he stopped drinking. But it’s a powerful segment of Ryan’s past.”
“Oh,” she said. It hurt. She missed that Ryan — and that was exactly why she couldn’t go. Damn it. She sighed. “Would you make my regrets? I’m coming down with a migraine.” And she was. Now.
Andrew McShane enveloped her in a hug and just held her.
She blinked back tears and gathered her composure. “Go, you’ll be late. Give them all my love. Tell them to send Rafael here any time.”
“Are you OK?” he asked. He couldn’t stay. They both knew it.
She nodded. “I will be.”
The Goose Hollow apartment was crowded. But that was OK with Ryan because it was filled with the people he knew, loved and trusted. McShane arrived with the pizza and without Abigail. “She’s got a migraine,” he said. “She sends her love. But eating pizza? At a party? She just can’t.”
“It’s OK,” Emily said, since it was supposedly her birthday. “Come in. I think there’s room.”
“Of course, there is,” Ryan called over. “He’s got the pizza.”
They ate pizza and then molten lava cake for desert. McShane frowned. “This tastes familiar,” he said. “Did you raid the university kitchens?”
Emily giggled. “No, but the dispatcher at the reconciliation session had the recipe, and she sent it to me. Best thing that’s ever happened to keeping me gaining weight.”
Cage hugged her. “Unfortunately, that applies to me too,” he grumbled.
“Oh!” Emily pulled free, got out a laptop and pulled up a website. “This is a private website at this point, but Joe Castro uploaded his pictures from the art show and protest-art performance — Robert’s term I gathered.”
McShane glanced at Ryan, but he didn’t seem to have any concerns.
“I think Rafael and I should read a book in the back room,” Mrs. Washington said with a laugh, and they disappeared to read. Rafael protested a bit, but he went.
“Joe is really good,” Ryan said as he looked at the photos. “We take him for granted. He said he might want Robert’s job if Robert ever leaves it.”
“Robert might, if he had an editor he thought well of to leave it to,” Cage said thoughtfully.
Teresa and Sam were the two who hadn’t been there. Teresa smiled at her husband. “The dom,” she said, and she put her arms around him from behind so she could lean against him and peer at the pictures. “I want a set of pictures,” she announced.
Sam whistled. “I’m surprised I wasn’t called in for an emergency session right then.”
“Why?” Ryan said, feeling insulted.
“Not you, doofus,” he said with a laugh. “Them.”
“Which brings us to Act 2 and the aftermath,” McShane said. “Ryan? How do you really feel? No ‘act as if’ shit either.”
Emily slipped back and got Mrs. Washington to come out. Em had Rafael by the hand, he was telling her something eagerly. As usual, you could only understand every third word, Ryan thought with a laugh. By this point, everyone just accepted it.
“I’m tired,” Ryan admitted. “My stamina is shit, and I just got some back from the last disaster. But the term is done. My papers are in. I don’t have any deadlines to speak of. So, I have time to build some stamina. And Dr. Clarke was right: establishing a routine last week really helped: eat, sleep, exercise, make love to my wife.”
“The last was my addendum not hers,” Teresa said. People laughed.
“Your sleep is still being disrupted by the nightmares,” Sam Bonner said quietly. “That’s why you don’t feel rested.”
Ryan nodded. “Sam? Give it straight here, what do you think?”
“About your long-term recovery? Very confident,” he said. “How long that will take? No clue really. You’re making faster progress than Erica expected, I do know that.”
“Am I stable enough to be around other people without supervision?” Ryan asked. “That’s what we’re dancing around.”
Sam blew out a deep breath. “Yeah, that’s what we’re dancing around,” he admitted. “Would I rather have you in a secure place for another week? Yes. But Erica can see the handwriting on the wall, and I gather so can you all. Her supervisory board is going to push for institutional care, probably a 30-day commitment, as soon as they review the file.”
“And do you think that’s necessary for me to get well?” Ryan said, his voice even.
Sam shook his head and sighed. “I’m a therapist, not a psychiatrist,” he said. “But my gut feeling is if Erica orders confinement for you — with the lack of stimuli that entails — you’ll come out in worse shape than when you go in. You’re already antsy after being in Erica’s ward for what? Four days? Lack of outward stimuli will push you inside yourself for inward stimuli, and that’s exactly what you must avoid except under controlled circumstances.”
“That makes sense,” Mrs. Washington said slowly. “A lot of sense.” She looked at Ryan consideringly, but she didn’t continue.
“But I might be a danger to Teresa or to Rafael,” Ryan continued his train of thought.
“I don’t think so,” Sam said. “But I don’t know all the fragments, as you call them, either. Were any of them violent? Angry? Resentful? Just had a high startle reflex? And then there’s the one that tried to take over this morning. What about him?”
“Why didn’t he succeed?” McShane asked.
Sam paused and looked out the window. Truly one of the worst views ever, Ryan knew; it was the Sunset Highway concrete abutment. But Sam wasn’t really looking at the view anyway.
“Good question. Ryan — our Ryan — is older, stronger, more mature. Ryan-at-20 was impulsive, still drinking and doing drugs, a very narcistic personality. Most of us are to some extent or another at that age,” he said with a laugh. “Ryan has made some choices since then that he feels really good about. He’s married, has a child, another on the way. He’s in graduate school and is the faculty advisor of EWN. All those things that matter to him. He’s going to fight to keep them. And, in my opinion, win. As he did this morning.”
“But?” Ryan prompted.
“Could that fight mean some thrashing about? Could there be some scary moments while you re-establish control? Especially scary for a child whose father doesn’t recognize him all of the sudden?”
Ryan flinched. “As in what happens if Rafael comes and bounces on the bed to wake us up at 6 a.m. as he’s wont to do?”
“As in,” Sam agreed sympathetically. “I’m giving it to you as straight as I can, Ryan, because you’ll figure it out anyway. But yes, that’s the thing that would worry me.”
Ryan could think of a few other ways that a dominant young man —Ryan at 20 — could harm someone in a few minutes. He looked at McShane, who met his eyes and nodded. He could too.
“I don’t care,” Teresa said firmly. “So, we teach Rafael that he can’t do that anymore. About time to teach him to respect privacy anyway. We’re both done with classes. We’re working on the Portland Heights house together. We could even go see my parents for a week. But Ryan will not do well in a care facility — not even the best of ones — and he won’t get better in Dr. Clarke’s clinic either.”
“I have an idea,” Martha Washington said slowly. “I’ve been giving this some thought as you all are talking. Would you consider me as a house guest for a week? I have some experience, enough to know when to call in the experts. Rafael knows me.” She smiled at Ryan. “May I be your surrogate mother for a week, Ryan?” she asked.
Ryan swallowed hard, squinting to keep the tears from escaping. “I would be honored,” he said. His voice was hoarse, and he cleared his throat. “Teresa?”
She nodded. “Yes,” she said softly.
“Sam?” Mrs. Washington asked. “What do you think?”
“Yes,” he said with obvious relief. “That might work. Teresa’s right on all accounts. And her idea of going to her parents isn’t a bad one either. But then he loses his sessions with me. For the next week, I’d like to continue to do daily sessions. See how much integration we can achieve. And then a trip to Yakima might be a good thing.”
“Anyone? See any problems we’re not seeing?” Mrs. Washington asked, looking around.
“Daily runs?” Cage asked. “With one or both of us?” Emily smiled at him.
“Yes,” Ryan whispered. He cleared his throat again. “Sir? Are we still doing the task force?”
“Yes,” McShane said. “I added Ramirez to it, by the way. He’s got some interesting things for you to look at. Seems you got through to Paul Blake — the so-called artist Friday night? He paid Ramirez a visit. But we can talk about that later.”
He looked at the table. “When are we staging the jailbreak? Do I have time for more molten lava cake?”
People laughed, and the conversation broke up. Teresa gave Mrs. Washington a big hug. And they stood off to one side talking. Ryan got more cake and stood by Sam to eat it.
“You are blessed, you know,” Sam said.
“I know,” Ryan said. “Believe me. I know.”
Epilogue
9 A.M., THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2021, PSU president’s conference room — Two weeks later, Ryan Matthews sat in the president’s conference room and looked around at the people he’d assembled for the Innovation Task Force with satisfaction.
“This is the first meeting of the Innovation Task Force,” said President Andrew McShane to the 60 or so people who gathered there.
Too many to be efficient, Ryan knew, but most work would be done outside the full task force in smaller committees. And efficiency wasn’t the top priority.
“Thank you for being willing to take on this commitment this summer,” President McShane said. “I will be turning this over to Dr. Steve Planck shortly who will be chair of the task force. He is the interim vice president of Student Affairs. If there is a more thankless, but key, job on this campus, I can’t think of it — and I include my own. If you need to find him, try a walk around the Park Blocks after dark.”
People smiled at Steve Planck as he laughed. He’d told Ryan that his wife had given him a lecture about being too closed off for a role like this. Since she was personnel director for Washington Federal Bank, he took her advice. Painful as it was. Ryan grinned. The laughter was a bit forced, but he was trying. And most wouldn’t notice. Most here wouldn’t notice if he had a mental breakdown right before their eyes. He knew of a professor who did, and he continued to teach classes for two weeks before students finally went to the chair with their concerns.
